at resulted from bilateral
discussion among individual leaders indicated that the Soviet Union was
to become the dominant military and political power in the Balkans. As a
result, the Soviets, from the outset of their period of occupation,
acted determinedly to consolidate their position within Romania and to
influence the development of a permanent postwar governmental system
designed along communist lines.

Although Romania had surrendered in August 1944, it took several months
to create a government stable enough to carry out essential programs.
The first postwar coalition regimes included relatively few Communists
who ostensibly cooperated with the revived traditional political
parties. Despite their small numbers, however, they vigorously engaged
in disruptive antigovernment tactics to prevent the stabilization of
political authority along democratic lines. This course of action was
dictated by the general weakness of the Communists who had surfaced
after the war and was handicapped by the absence of partisan or
resistance organizations, which could have been used as a basis for
expanding political control.

Lacking popular support, the Communist Party set about creating mass
organizations, labor unions, and front organizations through which they
could increase their power. Among the leaders in these activities were
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, an early Communist who had been imprisoned
during the war, and Ana Pauker, who had spent the war years in Moscow
before returning to Romania after the entry of Soviet forces. By the
fall of 1944 the Communists had been successful in grouping a
leftist-oriented agrarian party called the Plowman's Front, splinter
elements of the Social Democratic Party, various labor unions, and
several social welfare organizations into the National Democratic Front.
The front became the principal instrument through which the party worked
to achieve political dominance.

The National Democratic Front received recognition in the December 1944
government of General Nicolae Radescu and, although given a number of
important posts, was generally held to a role subordinate to that of the
National Peasant, the Liberal, and the Social Democratic parties. In
late January 1945 after a visit to Moscow by Pauker and Gheorghiu-Dej,
the leftist leadership within the government initiated a virulent
campaign of disorder, agitation, and denunciation against Radescu and
called for the replacement of his regime wi